This blog runs parallel to a new poetry blog 'Poetry Pinfold' (poetrypinfold.blogspot.com), and a new blog with poems in Dutch (bartnooteboomgedichten.blogspot.com)

Monday, September 9, 2013

110.
Hyperreality

Here I start a series of
items that is partly inspired by the work of the French philosopher Jean
Baudrillard. I am not sure that I understand him well, and in so far as I do, I
agree with him only in part, but the questions he raises are interesting and
here I present what I make of them. In this first item I pick up his claim that
in uses of modern communication technology reality has been lost and replaced
by what he calls ‘hyperreality’.

To be precise about reality I recall a few basic notions in
the theory of language and meaning that were discussed in earlier items in this
blog. One is that of the signifier (word, image, sign) and what is signified
by it. Another is that the meaning of a word or expression has two parts: reference
(signification of words) and sense. The referent of the word
‘chair’ is the set of all chairs, and its sense is how an object is recognized
as a chair. For a proposition reference is its truth or falsity, and sense is
the argumentation for it. Propositions without arguments are senseless.

I now interpret Baudrillard as saying that in present
culture we focus on the signifier, the word, and have lost sight of what it is
supposed to signify, refer to. Our images and verbal constructions, still
inspired somehow by reality, become footloose from what they are about. The
signifier steals the show, shoving the signified off-stage. What matters is no
longer so much what is said as how one says it. Not what is true but what is
interesting or exciting. Not arguments but opinions. This, Baudrilllard
acknowledges, goes back to Marshall McLuhan’s slogan that the medium is the
message.

So what is new? The signifier/word has always stood apart
from the signified/referent: it is never a true, complete representation of the
signified. As we acknowledge since the philosopher Kant, we can never know and
represent reality as it is in itself. As we acknowledge since the philosopher
Wittgenstein, words are not a true representation of underlying thought. In
some religions images of God are forbidden because if they truly represent God
then God is no longer transcendent and if they do not faithfully represent him
they mislead us.

Baudrillard claimed that under the impact of present
information-and-communication technology, reality is replaced by hyperreality.
That simulates reality, offering an idealized, more exciting, ecstatic
reality, a lie that is better than truth.

Again, what is new? Art, literature, theatre, and music have
always deliberately idealized, reduced, distilled, and transformed reality as
we perceive it. Its purpose indeed is, and always has been, to provide a
hyperreality, exploring possible or stylized worlds. This serves as a mental
exploration that stimulates intellectual and moral imagination, formation of
ideas, and shifts of meaning. As discussed in items 5 and 92 it helps to
simulate the consequences of possible actions, to explore morality.

It does, however, seem to be the case that we have
moved further into hyperreality. An example of hyperreality, given by Rick
Roderick is the ‘Swiss garden’, where one finds Swiss cuckoo clocks, mountain
scenes, costumes and food all brought together conveniently, to be visited
without the bother of actually travelling to Switzerland. Another example was
that of the shark from the film ‘Jaws’, more enticing and interesting than any
real shark. Also, you don’t exist unless you are on TV, so people hype up to
get there, reducing considered opinion to a slogan, turning character into
caricature.

What, if anything, is wrong with all this? When we give up
on the groping for reality we surrender argument and facts to emotions and
opinions. Facts, imperfect as they are, help to tie us to reality. When we
disregard facts reality indeed disappears.

Next to reality, identity also is lost, Baudrillard claims.
I will consider that in the following item.

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